Acceptance is best understood when you see what the contrast looks like.  My saddest realization raising Leta was that my family of origin was the least accepting of who she was and the least willing to step out of their comfort zone to love her.  My mom sadly did not have the emotional bandwidth to do this ,and had she lived, probably would have never emotionally gotten there.  My brothers never reached out either.  Not once in all the years of Leta being in the hospital, did I hear from them or have them offer to help.  And what is so fascinating about Leta, is like a horse, she can sense the people that don’t like her.  One of my favorite memories was a family trip we took to Canada to go skiing when Leta was about 9.  The plan was that I would drive up with Jack, Lucy , Ava and a Camphill co-worker named Nora.  Rick and Leta would fly to Montreal and we would pick them up at the airport.  Leta does not do well on long car rides and it was always easier to have her avoid long drives when possible.  On our trip North, I received a phone call from my cousin Carol, recently back from her fathers funeral in London .  She was very upset, so I invited her to join us on our trip.  Already in Woodstock, New York, she was on our way and we agreed to meet up in Albany and caravan to Canada together.    We met Carol in Albany and were an hour on the road when Carol’s car broke down .  Surprisingly, she still wanted to go skiing with us, so she had her car towed and she piled her 4 large pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage into  my already packed Suburban for the next leg of our long journey north.  We arrived an hour late to meet Leta and Rick’s plane and then, they too had to pile into the car with their bags. Now we were 4 adults and 4 kids in the car.   Leta had to sit on Rick’s lap, Ava sat on Jack’s, and the 8 of us continued on.  But  my high maintenance cousin was not happy.  She didn’t like how noisy all the kids were or how out of control Leta was acting. She kept telling Leta to shut up, as if this would help the situation.  Not much sensitivity coming from our last minute vacation guest, but family is family and we gritted our teeth and put up with Carol’s behavior. That is, all of us but Leta.   When We stopped at a McDonalds for a bathroom break, Carol continued to complain about Leta.  And when she got out of the car, Leta  walked over to her and bit her ass.  Just like that.  Leta has never done anything like that before or after.  But without words to defend herself, she clearly saw an opportunity to give Carol a piece of her mind.  Carol screamed and shoved Leta hard, knocking her down to the ground.  Carol is  no longer in our club.